He is demanding a vote on his Fed transparency bill, and has warned Senate leadership of his intentions to thwart the nomination of Yellen, President Barack Obama's nominee to replace Ben Bernanke as the Fed chief. Fox Business Network reported that a source close to the senator said his bill, which requires more audits of the central bank, has 25 co-sponsors including one Democrat. “It’s early in the process,” the source told Fox Business Network. "Whatever leverage he has, he’s going to consider.”

The news comes as Yellen is lining up meetings with key members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee for the coming weeks, Senate aides told Reuters on Thursday, in preparation for the potentially contentious hearing on her nomination.

Arch Fed critic Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., will meet her next week, according to his spokesman Jonathan Graffeo, while the office of Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is talking with the Fed to get a date for a meeting, Reuters reported

Both lawmakers voted against her nomination in 2010 as Fed vice chair and are expected to lead critical questioning before the banking panel on the Fed's ultra-easy monetary policy, which they say risks financial instability and future inflation.

The hearing to vet her for the top Fed job, before passing the nomination onto the full Senate for a vote, is not expected to be held before mid-November.

Republicans, eager to attack Obama's track record on the economy, are likely to be critical of Yellen's past public statements, which mark her as a policy dove who favors action to drive unemployment down faster and is less worried by inflation, according to Reuters.

But with Obama's Democrats controlling the Senate and 12 of the 20 seats on the Banking Committee, she is expected to get sufficient bipartisan support to secure the necessary 60 votes needed to clear Senate procedural hurdles and win confirmation.